


It Takes a While

by AMagicalLadyLarkin



Series: "...For A While" [3]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Allison Lives, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Cutting, Daddy Kink, Healing, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Minor Allison Argent/Scott McCall, Nogitsune Stiles, Post-Nogitsune Stiles Stilinski, Sad Stiles Stilinski, Suicide Attempt, Therapy, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Werewolf Allison, mostly angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-10
Updated: 2015-11-10
Packaged: 2018-04-30 21:39:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5180699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AMagicalLadyLarkin/pseuds/AMagicalLadyLarkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris doesn't want to have feelings for Stiles, but he does. And he certainly doesn't know how to recover from everything that's happened.</p><p>-----</p><p>Pre-Relationship: How did Chris recover from Allison almost dying?</p>
            </blockquote>





	It Takes a While

**Author's Note:**

> This is a Prequel to "Saying Goodbye for a While."
> 
> You don't have to read them in order, but I kind of encourage reading them as they were posted.

They aren’t exactly dating when it happens, but they’re closer than they should be, a 17 year old and a 45 year old. The thing growing between them shouldn’t be what it is, but it snuck up on Chris, and he’s not exactly sure how to change it.

It starts with a boy running scared, desperate to survive, to save his friends. It starts with Chris teaching Stiles. Just teaching. It was only ever supposed to be teaching, the two of them out at the range behind the house, guns and knives and hands repositioning body parts for maximum safety.

But there’s something to be said about the awkward boy who’s too grown up for his body, almost an adult years before he’s supposed to be. And then there’s really nothing to be said about that same boy when he learns how to use the gun in his hands.

Chris praises every deity he knows that Stiles isn’t a werewolf, because otherwise, his shame would be there for the world to smell.

Except, Stiles might not be a werewolf, but he runs with the wolves. With a gun in his hand, he becomes as wild as the wolves, as powerful, and he’s far, far from stupid.

So he knows. He knows that Chris attracted to him.

And he takes advantage of that until it ends up with Stiles pressed to the counter, ass perched there as he grips the walls that make the cubby, panting desperate words as Chris rubs his neck raw with beard burn, growling words of ownership, Stiles's 18the birthday a whole 4 days behind them..

It becomes a thing between them, Stiles’s reward for a good day of training.

It’s new between them, and then it’s too late.

No one realizes Stiles is possessed until it’s too late. Even Chris…and fuck, how did he miss that…doesn’t realize it, doesn’t know that he’s fucking around with a boy who isn’t his boy. No one knows, not until Stiles is gone and the Void is left.

And then Allison dies.

Or really, Chris thinks she dies. He can hear Scott screaming. The whole pack is a mess. She looks dead, seems dead, and Stiles is just standing there, grinning at the whole thing. It tears Chris apart because he wants his daughter back. He wants his…he wants Stiles back, wants fucking anyone to hold him together right now, but he’s so goddamn alone and he doesn’t know what to do about it.

Except, Allison doesn’t die.

Scott mans up, bites her, even if he thinks she’s already dead. Men do desperate things for love, and in the end, Chris finds peace with watching his daughter blink her eyes open again, werewolf or not. After all, their code has changed. After all, they protect those who can’t protect themselves.

It takes a little while, but they save Stiles.

They save the boy who doesn’t want to be saved.

Chris spends a little time sitting in the hospital room while Stiles sleeps, no one the wiser. He even manages to sneak past Melissa, which is really a feat in itself. Regardless, he sits in the hard plastic chair besides Stiles and yells in his head. Yells the frustration he feels. The fear. The anger. He never touches Stiles, sneaks out if the boy so much as flutters his lashes like he’s going to wake.

Because he’s hurt. He’s irrationally hurt by what that monster did while wearing the face of the boy he’s falling for. And he is, falling that is. Chris never wanted it to happen, but he is. He wants Stiles in ways that he never wanted Victoria, wants him because Stiles means something to him, brings back the light to his eyes and reminds him what it’s like to live and breath.

Chris knows he’s stupid for wanting Stiles. Stiles needs to recover from what has happened, needs to move out and get out of Beacon Hills. He needs a chance at normal, and Chris is none of those things. If anything, Chris should be a big, huge, fucking glaring reminder of how shitty Stiles’s life has been. So he never speaks to Stiles, is gone before he can wake, is gone before anyone close to Stiles can catch him with the boy.

\------

Stiles gets released from the hospital a few weeks later. Physically he’s healed, but mentally he’s just getting started. Chris knows from talking to Allison that John is forcing Stiles to talk to Marin Morell about what’s happened. She’s the only shrink in this town who can help Stiles. Allison can never tell him if it’s actually helping Stiles, because for all the hurt between the two, it seems like Allison holds less resentment for Stiles than he holds for her.

Chris focuses on helping Allison adjust. Derek Hale becomes a good help, a resource he thought he’d never use, but they manage it. They make it. He spends his nights helping his daughter learn to control her shift until she surpasses even Scott in her control as a bitten wolf. It’s months before Chris learns to sleep easy again, but he does, because Allison lives, even if she’s a werewolf. Suddenly, all this supernatural shit seems so trivial because he has his daughter because of it. He’s lost a lot, but he hasn’t lost her and that’s all that matters.

It’s late one night when Stiles shows up. Allison is at the old Hale house with the pack, celebrating the full moon with a run. They’ve earned a night of freedom, so Chris stays home, trusts them to keep themselves out of trouble. It’s a surprise when he hears the knock at the door, but he goes to check it anyway.

Being confronted by Stiles is something he’s not ready for. He slams the door in his face and stands there, hears the soft noise of distress and the murmured, “I deserved that.” It’s an even bigger surprise when Stiles leaves and doesn’t fight. The Stiles he knew would have pushed and poked and prodded until he got a response he could work with.

It keeps happening though. Stiles comes by, seeks him out at the grocery store, is always where Chris is. Several more times Chris shuts him down without letting him speak and Stiles deals with it. Then he starts to let him talk, slowly allows Stiles to apologize profusely. It’s not enough to fix things, but Chris appreciates the effort all the same.

Just when he thinks things are getting better though, they don’t. They fall apart.

It comes out that Stiles has been hurting himself, has been cutting into his arms and legs as punishment for the lives he ended, for the one he almost ended, for the people he’s hurt in any way because of that godforsaken Nogitsune. The news shatters something in Chris, but old hurts die hard and he hesitates to seek Stiles out.

It comes to a head a few weeks later when Stiles goes missing. He’s been having nightmares of what he did, and no one can find him. It turns into a full blown mission to find the missing boy. It shouldn’t be that hard.

John knows his son, or maybe he only knew him before the lies.

Scott knows his best friend, or maybe he only knew him before the possession, before Allison.

Chris knows Stiles, or maybe he only knew him before, before the darkness touched them all.

Except, Chris still knows Stiles, doesn’t he? He knows Stiles because he loves him. Whether he intended it or not, he knows Stiles, so it doesn’t take long to figure out where he is. Chris comes into the courtyard hesitantly, hands held up in front of him. Stiles is sobbing and his hands are shaking, but a gun is a gun and aim is only part of the appeal.

“Stiles.” He keeps his voice soft. It’s surreal to be here, to see Stiles sitting in the exact spot that Allison almost died.

“It should have been me. You should have killed me when you had the chance. I wish you had. It would have saved us all a lot of trouble. No one would have been hurt if someone would have just killed me when it happened.”

Chris wants to just bowl him over, pin him to the ground and hold him until he shakes apart so that Chris can put him together. But the unfortunate part is that Chris taught him how to fight and it’s pretty clear that Stiles is beyond desperate.

“I couldn’t kill you because I fell in love with you.” Chris admits.

It’s enough to convince Stiles to look at him. “You love me?”

Chris laughs. “It’s against my better judgement, but yeah, I fell in love with you, kiddo.”

Stiles shudders, fingers the gun in his hands. “I don’t actually want to die, you know? I don’t. There’s so many things I missed that I want to experience, but no one looks at me the same. No matter how hard they try, no one looks at me the same anymore. It would be easier if I was gone. Then you wouldn’t have to feel guilty about loving a boy the same age as your daughter. The daughter I tried to kill.”

“It wasn’t you, Stiles. Nothing that happened was you.”

“But wasn’t it? He feeds on chaos, Chris. He feeds on chaos and I’m the one filled with chaos. Your…he…it wanted you, Chris. It wanted you and I gave up my soul to make sure you were left alone. And yet, I still tried to kill your daughter.”

Looking at Stiles like this is enough to break Chris. He feels something in him shift, feels the first broken parts of him start to heal. Because Stiles and he are cut from the same cloth. They’re two men broken beyond repair but still living. And even though they’re far from perfect, Chris can kind of see a chance. He can see that little glimmer of hope shining in the distance.

So he goes to Stiles and takes the gun from him. Empties the shells from it and sits down next to him. He does what he’s wanted to do for a while and laces his fingers with Stiles and calls the sheriff. “I’ve got him, John. He’s okay. We’re all going to be okay.”

\-----

Stiles spends two months in an in-house program, where he’s able to get the help he needs. Marin proves to be a valuable resource because of course she knows a place that knows about the supernatural that can help Stiles. Of course she does.

Chris goes to France. He takes Allison and Isaac, because apparently the curly headed boy needs a chance to grow too. So he packs them up and leaves, spends his own two months there as he works on his own healing. He finds his own kind of peace and takes the time to breathe for a while.

He gets a Beacon Hills postcard from Stiles two weeks before he’s intending to come home. Chris is immensely impressed with the kid’s ability to get his hands on it, considering that he’s across the country from Beacon Hills in the first place. He’s also impressed that Stiles has Chris’s address. But then again, Stiles always was impressive.

The postcard has a simple message: We should talk when I get home.

There’s a date under it. A date and a time and a place.

Chris comes home with Allison and Isaac in tow. He gets everyone settled in, then drives out to the same courtyard where everything fell apart in the first place. Stiles is already there and the first thing Chris thinks is, damn he looks good. It’s clear that Stiles is better. He looks healthier. Happier. There’s a life in his eyes that wasn’t there before.

Chris says nothing.

It’s okay because this time it’s Stiles turn. “The first thing they told me was to communicate. The second thing they told me was to let go of something I couldn’t control. The third thing was to stop letting go of things I deserve. So here it is. I love you. I was possessed and did bad things, but it wasn’t me. I want to be your boyfriend, if there’s any chance that we can make this work.”

Chris is 47 years old and this boy is the same age as his daughter. It starts out with a boy running scared, desperate to survive, to save his friends. It ends with a boy and a man who are tired of running. And if Chris learned anything in France, it’s that he’s tired of being alone. He’s tired of watching the things he wants slip past.

So he smiles and says: “I think we’ve got a little work to do, but lucky for you, I’m a patient man, kiddo.”

There’s a lot of things left unsaid, but it’s okay because the two of them have learned to talk in a way that they didn’t know how to do before. It’s not gold, but Chris loves Stiles and Stiles loves Chris. That’s enough to get them started on the road to recover. It definitely doesn’t mean Stiles is suddenly going to shout to the world that he’s dating Chris and vice versa, but one day soon they’ll find the peace to do that. One day they’ll both be ready. 

It starts off with running, but it ends with a promise.

**Author's Note:**

> Stay tuned, guys. I'm really feeling this collection. The life of Chris and Stiles. <3


End file.
